Obviously, a free-to-play nature should influence the way a free-to-play game works — after all, the developer is giving you the game for free. In this case, however, being able to compare the original’s one-time-purchase to the sequel’s free-to-play model makes the influence all the more glaring. Though the world map lets you reselect previous levels so you can grind coins if you want to bolster your funds (which is fun if you’re in the mood), there are locked doors blocking access to various parts of the map that house new levels and new plants for your garden arsenal. The way to remove these locks, unfortunately, is to gain keys that pop randomly from defeated enemies.

So, a new plant and three new levels might reside behind a lock that requires four keys, but you just replayed two levels and didn’t pop a single key, forcing you to continue grinding. Fortunately, though, I haven’t yet had to grind very much in order to generate enough keys.

The most heinous use of the cash shop is that five plants are locked away behind a $2.99 paywall each, while one is locked behind a $3.99 barrier. Five of these plants are from the first game, and might’ve been your favorite: the Snow Pea, Squash, Jalapeno, Imitater, and Torchwood (this is the $3.99 plant). A new plant, the Power Lily, is also locked behind the paywall. These plants are not obtainable any other way. Everything else in the cash shop is avoidable, such as bags of coins or upgrades that you can earn in-game by spending keys to unlock certain pathways. So, that makes the six plants the maximum price you “have” to spend on the full experience, which is $19. If you think about it, you’d probably pay about $20 for a new PvZ, but you feel dirty spending $3 or $4 on a single plant that you had in the first game even though they all add up to one dollar less.

Other uses of the cash shop include spending a couple bucks to remove a lock if you don’t want to grind for keys, or spending a couple bucks to refill your plant food meter — a new mechanic where you can spend one plant food resource on a single plant to activate that plant’s unique special power for a brief moment. You can generate plant food in the game as well by killing glowing enemies, so you don’t need to dump money on this. As for the bag of coins, there doesn’t seem to be an in-game shop this time around, so you don’t appear to be able to buy plants with in-game currency, and instead unlock them through completing levels and removing locks. The only use coins appear to have are for buying a use of one of three new superpowers that help you kill zombies in different ways: pinching their heads off, flinging them offscreen, or electrocuting them.

After playing for a couple of hours, I received a popup message in-game that at a glance looks like a typical free-to-play ad, but instead offered me a 30% discount at the cash shop. So, if you’re going to make a purchase, wait for that discount!

The final way the free-to-play model has affected the game is that it’s more difficult than the first one. It’s not so maddeningly difficult that you throw money a the cash shop out of unadulterated, blinding rage, but PopCap needs to make money somewhere, and the higher difficulty might spur you to rationalize buying a new plant.

So far, the game only has three world maps — Egypt, a pirate themed zone, and a wild west themed area. It’s safe to assume that in the future, PopCap will pry money from all our hands by adding more zones, as it’s odd that a time travel game only has three time periods.

The end result of all this is that Plants vs. Zombies 2: It’s About Time is good, since the gameplay is more or less the same as the first installment, which was very good. It’s full of puns, features pretty art and enjoyable audio, and you can play it in the bathroom. Unfortunately, it’s a timed exclusive for iOS, with no announced timetable for other platforms as of this time.

There is a new grindy nature to the game, which might make it a little less fun than the first. PopCap, however — master of puns — hid this notion in the game’s subtitle. Yes, “it’s about time” is a play on the game’s time traveling theme, and a play on how its four-year release cycle was quite a while. However, it’s also a play on how, this time around, you’ll be spending more time grinding levels you’ve already played in order to progress. Thankfully, the game’s super fun.